"Come on, damn it!"

The icy black water of the Bering Sea crashed against the small fishing boat, The Saga, owned and operated by the Campbell family.

It was a small boat that employed only the family. Rodney Campbell had owned and operated The Saga for nearly fifteen years, though he had worked on boats since he was in his early teenage years. He had a family to support, three sons and a daughter. After earning enough money to invest in his own fishing boat, Rodney decided to enlist the help of his own sons, Rodney Jr., Josh, and Aaron, to operate the fishing boat. It was a dangerous job, yes, but it was all they could do to survive.

Then his wife became pregnant again. Rodney expected another son. Instead, he got Lola. She was a spitting image of her mother- thick brown locks that danced in curls down her back, eyes so black they resembled the depths of the ocean, and creamy skin that gave a nod to her Inuit ancestors.

When she was a small child, Lola's mother wanted nothing more than for her daughter to learn to sew and cook. She was strong on tradition. However, being the youngest child, and a girl at that, Lola wanted to emulate her siblings. Her brothers weren't sitting at home, twiddling their thumbs together. They were going on adventure! So she traded her sewing needles in for fishing poles.

Lola began begging her parents to go out crab fishing from the moment she turned 14, which is when her brothers began to go on the boat. They were not having it. It took Lola three years of constant begging and pleading to get them to agree, mostly to get her to shut up, to venture out into the harsh waters of the Bering Sea.

That's how Lola landed on the slippery surface of The Saga in the middle of the night.

She steadied herself against the tub as RJ and Josh pulled the pots up from the tumultuous sea. They had 200 pots to start the season.

"Lola! Get your head in the game! This isn't the time to be a wimp!"

A gush of water rushed over the deck, pushing Lola a few steps back. She struggled to gain her footing. With a hard face, she pushed forward. She grabbed onto the pot and helped pull it over.

"27!" Aaron screamed, so their father could hear it.

They had been working for seven straight hours. RJ, Josh, and Aaron were worn but pushing through. They were used to the hard hours. It was Lola's first run on the ship, and she wasn't used to it.

Aaron sensed her fatigue and encouraged, "Come on, baby sis! We've got 20 pots to go. You can do it!"

But she couldn't do it. She'd spent her entire life fishing, but this was completely different. She had spent some time training before heading out for the season, but no amount of training could have prepared her for the long, never ending shifts and the laborious work.

Lola's legs buckled and she lurched forward. The deck, sloshing with water, beckoned her forward. She couldn't stop herself as she got closer to the edge of the boat. She felt herself leaning forward, tipping over…

When two strong arms strangled her from behind. RJ, her oldest brother, had grabbed her just as she began to fall. He jerked her backwards, and the two toppled down, back against the hard metal of the pot.

"God damn it, Lola!" He exhaled. "What are you doing?"

"Fishing," She sighed, still surprised she was alive. "What are you doing?"

"Smart ass," He grunted, pushing her up.

"Come on!" Their father yelled. "We can't lose this time! Keep going!"

Josh was both annoyed at his father's insensitivity and his sister's stupidity.

"Are you going to be okay to keep going?" He called out over the howl of the water.

"I can do it!" Lola snapped. She reached to grab the lining of the next pot. "Someone help me!"

Pot after pot, the crew strained and pulled under the watchful eye of their father. The first night of the season was always hard, but tonight, the sea was being especially horrendous. Even the veterans of the sea were getting a beating from the Bearing Sea. By the time the final pot was lifted, Lola felt as if she was going to break.

With the final count of the strings of pots done, the crew retreated to the salon of the boat. They stripped their wet gear off and changed into dry clothing. They were to report to the central salon when they were finished changing.

They were a small crew, even compared to tiny companies. Because they were so small, they had to work together to get things done. That meant even the might Captain Rodney had to help out. He had a modest dinner of canned and packaged food laid out on the table.

Lola was the last to walk in. She frowned under the eye of her family.

No one said anything as she sat down and began shoveling the green beans into her mouth. She hadn't had a bite of food all day, and her body was about to devour itself.

"Don't tell me how disappointed you are. I can tell by the way you all are looking at me." She said sarcastically between inhales of food.

"You scared us all to hell and back," RJ grumbled.

"Well, Dad, what do you have to say?" Lola frowned as she turned to her father.

Rodney was well into his 50's. His hair had been white for years as a result of the hard work of the Sea. The hair on his head was thin, but it was always covered by a dark beanie. His face was worn with wrinkles. He had an untamed white beard that he always twisted when he was angry.

And he was twisting it right now.

"Don't talk to me like that," He growled. "Don't make me regret bringing you, Lola. And don't make me pull back into port one child short and tell your mother you were too stupid to behave on this god forsaken boat and you went overboard."

The room fell into silence. The Campbell children weren't strangers to their father's high demands and anger outbursts.

Lola slowly shoveled instant mashed potatoes into her mouth, "You're such a Negative Nancy."

Her father's hand collided with her face, stinging the fork out of her hand and across the room. Lola closed her eyes hard for a second to push back her tears. She popped out of the booth and stormed down the hall to the small row of bunks.

She was assigned the top bunk, though it was way too high for her. She had no idea how to get up there. She tried climbing on the lower bunks, but the strategy failed miserably. Lola landed on the cold floor of the boat.

She was tired. Her body was sore. Her hands were raw. She was freezing. And she was crying.

"You know you sort of were asking for that."

Aaron stood in the doorway with his arms crossed. He was closest to her in age- being 21.

Lola dragged her sleeve across her face, "How long have you been there?"

"For as long as you've been on the floor."

Aaron slid across the floor and sat next to her. He rubbed her leg tenderly and said,

"The first few days are rough. We told you that."

"I didn't realize they would be this hard," Lola sniffled. "I feel like I'm disappointing Dad, you know?"

Lola wasn't sure Aaron knew what she meant. He was male, after all. When Lola was born, her dad was upset. She knew he was. He had another mouth to feed but not another set of hands to help him.

"Here, let me help you get up in your bunk," Aaron offered.

Aaron lifted Lola up off the floor and gave her a boost into the top bunk. Lola immediately wrapped the blankets around her body. The first day was barely over and she was already a broken bag of bones. She had no idea how her father and brothers did this year after year. She had no idea how she was going to make it through the next few weeks.